1.
Boxing
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Boxing is a combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring. Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds, in the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, the fight is considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, due to the fact that a winner must be declared, in the case of a draw - the judges use technical criteria to choose the most deserving winner of the bout. While people have fought in combat since before the dawn of history. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete, in Ancient Greece boxing was a well developed sport and enjoyed consistent popularity. In Olympic terms, it was first introduced in the 23rd Olympiad,688 B. C, the boxers would wind leather thongs around their hands in order to protect them. There were no rounds and boxers fought until one of them acknowledged defeat or could not continue, weight categories were not used, which meant heavyweights had a tendency to dominate. It was the head of the opponent which was primarily targeted, Boxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. In order for the fighters to protect themselves against their opponents they wrapped leather thongs around their fists, eventually harder leather was used and the thong soon became a weapon. The Romans even introduced metal studs to the thongs to make the cestus which then led to a more sinister weapon called the myrmex, Fighting events were held at Roman Amphitheatres. The Roman form of boxing was often a fight until death to please the spectators who gathered at such events, however, especially in later times, purchased slaves and trained combat performers were valuable commodities, and their lives were not given up without due consideration. Often slaves were used against one another in a circle marked on the floor and this is where the term ring came from. In AD393, during the Roman gladiator period, boxing was abolished due to excessive brutality and it was not until the late 17th century that boxing re-surfaced in London. Records of Classical boxing activity disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire when the wearing of weapons became common once again, however, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. There was also a sport in ancient Rus called Kulachniy Boy or Fist Fighting, as the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport would later resurface in England during the early 16th century in the form of bare-knuckle boxing sometimes referred to as prizefighting. The first documented account of a fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury
2.
River Thames
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The River Thames is a river that flows through southern England, most notably through London. At 215 miles, it is the longest river entirely in England and it also flows through Oxford, Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor. The lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. It rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, and flows into the North Sea via the Thames Estuary, the Thames drains the whole of Greater London. Its tidal section, reaching up to Teddington Lock, includes most of its London stretch and has a rise, in Scotland, the Tay achieves more than double the average discharge from a drainage basin that is 60% smaller. Along its course are 45 navigation locks with accompanying weirs and its catchment area covers a large part of South Eastern and a small part of Western England and the river is fed by 38 named tributaries. The river contains over 80 islands, in 2010, the Thames won the largest environmental award in the world – the $350,000 International Riverprize. The Thames, from Middle English Temese, is derived from the Brittonic Celtic name for the river, Tamesas, recorded in Latin as Tamesis and yielding modern Welsh Tafwys Thames. It has also suggested that it is not of Celtic origin. A place by the river, rather than the river itself, indirect evidence for the antiquity of the name Thames is provided by a Roman potsherd found at Oxford, bearing the inscription Tamesubugus fecit. It is believed that Tamesubugus name was derived from that of the river, tamese was referred to as a place, not a river in the Ravenna Cosmography. The rivers name has always pronounced with a simple t /t/, the Middle English spelling was typically Temese. A similar spelling from 1210, Tamisiam, is found in the Magna Carta, the Thames through Oxford is sometimes called the Isis. Ordnance Survey maps still label the Thames as River Thames or Isis down to Dorchester, richard Coates suggests that while the river was as a whole called the Thames, part of it, where it was too wide to ford, was called *lowonida. An alternative, and simpler proposal, is that London may also be a Germanic word, for merchant seamen, the Thames has long been just the London River. Londoners often refer to it simply as the river in such as south of the river. Thames Valley Police is a body that takes its name from the river. The marks of human activity, in cases dating back to Pre-Roman Britain, are visible at various points along the river
3.
Simon Byrne
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Simon Byrne, nicknamed The Emerald Gem, was an Irish bare-knuckle prize fighter. The heavyweight boxing champion of Ireland, he was drawn to England by the larger sums of money on offer. He became one of six fighters ever to have been involved in fatal fights as both survivor and deceased since records began in 1741. Byrne fought in an era when English boxing, although illegal, was patronised by many powerful individuals and its patronage and popularity did not, however, free it from corruption, heavy betting, and staged fights. The injuries McKay received in his fight with Byrne resulted in his death the following day, Byrne went on to lose his next match against Jem Ward, which some commentators believed he was not sufficiently in condition to fight. His final contest in May 1833 was a gruelling 99 rounds against James Burke that lasted for 3 hours and 6 minutes, Byrne died three days later as the result of damage to his brain caused by the beating he had received. Burke was arrested and tried for manslaughter but was acquitted, during the first half of the 19th century pugilism, better known as prize-fighting, held a curious position in British society. The sport enjoyed a surge in popularity during the Regency period when it was openly patronised by the Prince Regent. Championship boxing matches acquired a reputation as the places to be seen by the wealthy upper classes. Thus a match would often be attended by thousands of people, the Duke of Cumberland was reported to have bet thousands of pounds on Jack Broughton, who was the English champion for 18 years. Boxing had become a nest of gambling related corruption by the 1820s, the epitome of this era was the championship reign of Jem Ward, a fighter who on one occasion admitted taking £100, equivalent to several thousand pounds today, to lose a contest. By 1830 the sport had become known for its corruption. It was against this background that Simon Byrne earned his living, very little is known of Byrnes early life beyond the fact that he was born in Ireland in 1806. His second fight was a draw against Jack Manning in 1826, next was Byrnes first match against the Scottish boxer Alexander McKay, which Byrne won easily in five rounds, earning him a further £100. This match was McKays first ever prize-fight and this victory was soon followed by a win against Bob Avery, earning a further £50, then another win over Phil Samson in 1829, earning him £200. As of 2008 that would be the equivalent of about £13,600, the fight against Alexander McKay was Byrnes first brush with notoriety. On 2 June 1830, Byrne, billed as Champion of Ireland, fought McKay, the Champion of Scotland, for the right to challenge Jem Ward, the match had been organized at Tom Springs Castle Tavern, in Holborn. The former champion boxer Tom Spring, as treasurer of the Fair Play Club – the organization which oversaw boxing – was immensely influential in the boxing world, along with two other well-known boxers, Gentleman Jackson and Tom Cribb, he was Byrnes sponsor for the match
4.
Jem Ward
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Jem Ward was an English bare-knuckle boxer. A fine fighter and powerfully built man, he was the English champion boxer from 1825 until 1831, however, he is most notable for being the first boxer to be officially disciplined for deliberately losing a fight. During his fighting career he was nicknamed The Black Diamond, in his retirement he became a successful artist. Ward first became a boxer in 1815, at 15 years of age. He was 5 ft 11 inches tall, and weighed 12 stone and his first fight was victorious against George Robinson and from this point he never lost a match, until he lost to Bill Abbott in 1822. This was the bout that wrecked Wards early professional career. He was heard to call to his opponent Now, Bill, look sharp, hit me and he was promptly hit and fell to the ground. Abbott was considered to be a boxer to Ward. The Pugilistic Society, the body which then governed boxing and enforced the London Prize Ring rules, eventually after confessing he had received a £100 bribe to lose, Ward was banned from fighting in any contest governed by the Society. In this era boxing was heavily betted upon, by members of all strata of society, the incident has left Wards reputation with a lasting stigma. Ward was the brother of the boxer Nick Ward, who also had a reputation for using unfair tactics. Nick Ward, however, did not achieve the success as his brother in the ring. Deprived of his living Ward was reduced to travelling the country fighting under assumed names at fairs or in any chance ungoverned brawl where he could pick up a prize. He fought Ned Baldwin and defeated him, but the match was due to his ban. Under the pseudonym Sawney Wilson and claiming to be a boy, he beat the champion Joe Rickens. Later in 1823, the Pugilistic Society decided to re-allow him to enter their fights, after his reinstatement, he lost his first fight to Josh Hudson. In 1825, anxious for publicity and thus money, he challenged and this proved to be the very high-profile match Ward needed, with Cannon seconded by two previous champions Tom Spring and Tom Cribb, names guaranteed to draw the crowds. The match took place on 19 July 1825 at Stanfield Park on a hot day with the temperature reputedly over 90 degrees Fahrenheit
5.
New Orleans
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New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city was 343,829 as of the 2010 U. S. Census, the New Orleans metropolitan area had a population of 1,167,764 in 2010 and was the 46th largest in the United States. The New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area, a trading area, had a 2010 population of 1,452,502. The city is named after the Duke of Orleans, who reigned as Regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723, as it was established by French colonists and it is well known for its distinct French and Spanish Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is also famous for its cuisine, music, and its celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The city is referred to as the most unique in the United States. New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River, the city and Orleans Parish are coterminous. The city and parish are bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany to the north, St. Bernard to the east, Plaquemines to the south, and Jefferson to the south and west. Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north, before Hurricane Katrina, Orleans Parish was the most populous parish in Louisiana. As of 2015, it ranks third in population, trailing neighboring Jefferson Parish, La Nouvelle-Orléans was founded May 7,1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of the Kingdom of France at the time and his title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris, during the American Revolutionary War, New Orleans was an important port for smuggling aid to the rebels, transporting military equipment and supplies up the Mississippi River. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez successfully launched a campaign against the British from the city in 1779. New Orleans remained under Spanish control until 1803, when it reverted briefly to French oversight, nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré dates from the Spanish period, the most notable exception being the Old Ursuline Convent. Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, thereafter, the city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, Creoles, and Africans. Later immigrants were Irish, Germans, and Italians, Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city. The Haitian Revolution ended in 1804 and established the republic in the Western Hemisphere. It had occurred several years in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue
6.
William Thompson (boxer)
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William Abednego Thompson was an English bare-knuckle boxer. He was the last of 21 children born in the slums between Long Row and Parliament Street, from an early age, Thompson developed well and was noted as having an ability with sports. When he was 15 his father died and William was sent to the Nottingham Workhouse with his mother, after leaving the Workhouse, Thompson sold oysters in and around the streets of Nottingham before obtaining a job as an iron turner. By the age of 18, he was fighting for money to provide for his family. He defeated his first eight opponents — including the champion of the town of Bingham. At age 21 he was a prize fighter. Thompson was a boxer who compensated for his lack of height with an incredible ability to punch hard and fast. He was also agile, earning the name Bendy because of his constant bobbing and weaving around the ring, his nickname evolved. Though it was his speed and agility that won him his fights, it was Thompsons personality and he would make up rhymes about his opponents during the fights, and distract them with insults and tall tales of their wives and mothers while pulling funny faces at them. It wasnt long before Thompson was drawing crowds of over 10,000 people to his illicit fights, Thompsons career is mostly remembered for his fierce rivalry with the Hucknall-born boxer Ben Caunt. In 1835 the two met for the first time for a purse of £25 and this fight lasted 22 rounds, which at the time did not last a set amount of time, but was called whenever a fighter was knocked down. Bendigo, who was 19 kg lighter and 15 cm shorter, got into difficulties during the fight and this, along with his constant manic laughter and free flowing insults, frustrated Caunt, who finally struck Thompson while he was kneeling and so lost the match on a foul. A writer at the fight described Caunt as full of trickery and treachery — he has no ethics and Thompson as deadly and as poisonous as a rattlesnake with about the same ethics. A few months later, Thompson responded to a letter in a newspaper from Liverpudlian William Looney, challenging. any man in the world for £200 stake, the two met on 13 June 1837, on a hill at Chapel-en-le-Frith the halfway point between their hometowns. Thompson took control of the shortly after and started somersaulting in the ring, endearing him to the crowds. However, even through the constant barrage of punches Looney fought bravely on, eventually Thompsons athleticism shone through and he was declared the winner after dominating over an hour of fighting. On 3 April 1838 Caunt finally obtained his rematch, worth £300 in prize money, consequently, he easily outfoxed and outmanoeuvred Caunt. The fight lasted for 75 rounds of furious combat, in the fifth round, Caunt had Thompson on the ropes and nearly strangled him but Thompson fought back, peppering his opponent with body shots and more insults
7.
William Perry (boxer)
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William Perry, known as The Tipton Slasher was a British heavyweight prize fighter of the 19th century and champion of England, 1850–57. Perry was born in Park Lane, Tipton of canal narrowboat parents Timothy and Sarah Perry, the third of five children and he married Ann Maria Challingworth on 11 June 1851 and had a son in 1854. He ran a house in Spon Lane. After losing the title Champion of England in 1857 he became landlord of the Bricklayers Arms, Walsall Road and he died at home in Bilston of alcoholism and pulmonary congestion on 24 December 1880 and was buried at St Johns Church, Dudley. A bronze statue by Bill Haynes stands in the Coronation Gardens, Tipton, yards away from the Fountain Inn public house, the statue was unveiled on 3 May 1993. His remains were removed from St Johns Churchyard and placed in the footings for the statue, List of bare-knuckle boxers Career record at cyberboxingzone List of his fights and obituary William Perry at Find a Grave
